index.md

---

title: Canvas
slug: Glossary/Canvas
page-type: glossary-definition

---

The canvas element is part of HTML5 and allows for dynamic, scriptable rendering of 2D and 3D shapes and bitmap images.

It is a low level, procedural model that updates a bitmap and does not have a built-in scene graph. It provides an empty graphic zone on which specific {{Glossary("JavaScript")}} {{Glossary("API","APIs")}} can draw (such as Canvas 2D or {{Glossary("WebGL")}}).

See also

• Canvas on Wikipedia

• The Canvas tutorial on MDN

• The HTML {{HTMLElement("canvas")}} element on MDN

• The Canvas general documentation on MDN

• {{domxref("CanvasRenderingContext2D")}}: The canvas 2D drawing API

• The Canvas 2D API specification